WEST SACRAMENTO -- Nick Kurtz is not one to visibly show when he’s in pain, which is why there was reasonable cause for concern after he fouled a ball hard off his right heel in the fifth inning and hobbled around home plate.
The last thing the Athletics want is to lose the reigning American League Rookie of the Year for any amount of time. After getting checked out by an athletic trainer and manager Mark Kotsay, though, it didn’t take long for him to shake it off and show everyone in the building he was just fine.
Three pitches later, Kurtz hammered a slider from Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore, sending it a Statcast-projected 405 feet over the wall in left-center for a momentum-shifting grand slam that put the A’s ahead for good in Wednesday’s 6-2 victory at Sutter Health Park.
Kurtz, who was sporting a large ice pack around his right foot postgame, rounded the bases without issue. He moved around even better once he got back to the dugout and donned the A’s home run elephant chain and mask, making his way down the high-five line before bumping chests with teammate Lawrence Butler.
“I think he should foul balls off his foot more often,” Kotsay said with a grin. “It’s a big moment in the game. We’ve seen that from Nick before. In fact, I was telling [director of hitting Darren Bush] as he was walking up, it’d be a nice time for his first homer against a lefty this year. That’s an at-bat that we’re used to watching him take.”
Comparitively speaking, it has been a slow start in the power department for Kurtz -- now at six home runs on the year -- based on the sky-high expectations placed on him entering year two as a big leaguer. Given his struggles against southpaws early in his career, Wednesday's big fly was also a significant one in that it was his first off a left-hander this season.
More important to Kurtz, however, was that the slam was his first opposite-field homer. A telltale sign that Kurtz is swinging it well is when he’s crushing balls the other way. Last season, his 18 opposite-field homers led all Major League hitters. When his homers start going out to left, that’s generally a sign that he’s about to go on a heater at the plate.
“I’m more happy that that was the first one the other way this year,” Kurtz said. “That’s a bigger emphasis for me. Righty or lefty, whichever is going to happen is going to happen. But seeing one go that way in the air felt pretty good.”
Wednesday night was an example of Kurtz’s elite ability to make adjustments, which Kotsay said is on par with All-Stars and Hall of Fame-type players he’s been around. In the first inning, Kurtz saw a heavy dose of Liberatore’s slider before striking out on it. Reflecting on that at-bat while on deck in the fifth, Kurtz had a feeling that slider was coming again.
Sure enough, Liberatore started Kurtz off with two consecutive sliders in the fifth. After fouling off a 96 mph fastball for the fifth pitch of the at-bat to keep it a 2-2 count, Kurtz got that slider in a similar placement to the one he struck out on earlier. Of course, the result was different this time around.
“I figured, after striking me out with a few sliders in the first at-bat, there was a good chance that he would go to it,” Kurtz said. “He threw me two early, so I knew at a certain spot with two strikes, he was going to go back to it. I fouled off a fastball before that, and then I knew some type of spin was coming. It just happened to be the smaller one.”
Kurtz later sparked another rally in the seventh with a leadoff double to left, eventually coming around to score on the first career RBI for A’s No. 5 prospect Henry Bolte, who notched two hits and also made an impressive diving catch in center in his Major League debut.
J.T. Ginn paced the A’s on the mound following up a stellar performance of eight innings of one-run ball in Philadelphia his last time out with another strong outing. Despite allowing nine hits and a walk, Ginn held the Cardinals to one unearned run across six innings with three strikeouts, earning his second win of the season and lowering his ERA to 3.12 as the A’s (22-20) keep their hold on first place in the American League West.